locating…

projected video installation, 2022

I’ve always been connected to sand, it has found its way into my art-making a few times now due to its fluid properties: always unbound, subject to movement, to reshaping, to change, and to relocation.

I went to a beach and gathered sand, video documenting the material I used to place the sand in. The sand is then displaced, brought back to another location —much like it naturally moves from place to place due to the tides. The sand we experience in one moment is constantly moved and rearranged, we never set foot in the same landscape twice.

I have been thinking about this fluidity of place, identity tied to our placement — where we're from in our family lineage, where we grew up, where we live now. All of these places are different locations for me. I think about how green screens have a specific function for keying visual information out of what has been captured: a background being removed, often actively and ongoing, as some of us assimilate to our current surroundings. Maybe we actively instead hold onto certain aspects of previous places. Maybe we form our own sense of place as we go. Maybe we're constructing a sense of place for a place we've never physically known.

I was born and grew up in Florida. I live in New York City. I've never been to Syria.

I'm somewhere here.